


The Nerd

by dazzlelester



Category: Twenty One Pilots
Genre: M/M, brendon has a crush on sarah tho, but there's not brallon in this sorry my guys, everyone else is on the side, except lowkey brendon and dallon, tyler and josh are the main dudes
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-05-29
Updated: 2017-05-31
Packaged: 2018-11-06 04:23:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,394
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11028564
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dazzlelester/pseuds/dazzlelester
Summary: Josh Dun absolutely loves everything about being in his school's theatre program. He puts all his effort into theatre, in and out of the class itself. When audition time for The Nerd finally comes, Josh jumps at his last opportunity to be on stage his senior year, and hopes to finally be a lead.~Tyler Joseph loves theatre, too. He's great at acting, but he's got major stage fright. Thus, he prefers to work behind the scenes. One of his favorite things is seeing a play come together and turn into something spectacular. He's excited to do one more play, but scared to go up on stage with all the other talented actors. Mainly Josh, who he's hardly spoken to and always finds himself to be flustered around. Tyler's nervous about having to see him for hours after school everyday, but he hopes he can manage.





	1. Chapter 1

"Woah, woah, woah. Wait. Josh, have you see this already?" Brendon asked, stopping in his tracks to stare at a poster on the wall. "Seen what, dude?" Josh answered, slightly annoyed. They didn't have much time to get back to theatre class after lunch, and stopping in the middle of the hall wasn't exactly going to get them there faster. Brendon huffed and pointed to the poster, turning his head to face Josh and returning with, "This! Did Finster put these up during lunch? Why wouldn't he tell us about this first?" Josh finally made his way to where Brendon stood and turned his gaze to where his friend was pointing. "Woah, wait, what? We're doing The Nerd!?" Josh exclaimed with excitement, all of his previous annoyance dissolving. "Apparently," said Brendon, turning back toward the poster, "Why do you sound so excited about it?" Brendon asked, a bit confused as to why Josh was so excired to do a play that he had personally never heard of. "Because," Josh said, remembering they had a place to be and gesturing to Brendon to follow him as he lead down to the theatre room. "That's the play that my parents met at. If the show hadn't been so damn funny they would've never talked about it during intermission and they would've never gone on to be married. I've been waiting all year to get cast as a lead role and to get it in The Nerd would be perfect!" They made it to the theatre room with just a few seconds to spare, and quickly rushed to their seats. Brendon and Josh both waited to see if their theatre teacher, Mr. Finster, would talk about their apparently upcoming play. 

 

The theatre room at Long Creek High was quite different than those of other high schools. The room had no windows and a white board next to a place for a projector. There weren't desks, but instead there were two church pews and three two-person couches for people to sit on. Role call was done by every student saying '[insert name] is here, having a great day!' in alphabetical order. The room had its own little office where the aid students in theatre one classes could work. The door by where Mr. Finster's computer and miscellaneous things led to a hall to the auditorium. The squares in the ceiling could be moved in and out of place, so for each square was a shirt from one of the previous plays they'd done. 

 

The classroom was quite a character in itself, but the people in it made it even more special. Fifth period theatre was the class for the most advanced theatre students. There were seven students in the class, all with different and distinct personalities. Closest to the door was Tyler. He wore mostly black, and only talked to one other kid in the class. That kid, Dallon, was the exact opposite of Tyler, and sometimes people wondered how they got along so well. On one of the two person couches were Jenna, Debby, and Sarah, who were slender enough to squeeze into the couch. They were all kind, but often slacked during rehearsals. In the middle pew was Josh and Brendon, who always had something to say or laugh at. No one sat on the left side of the room because no one wanted to sit in front of Mr. Finster, in fear of setting him off in some way. The room was perfectly disfunctional in every way. 

 

Mr. Finster wasn't in the room when the bell rang, so everyone got the chance to continue to the conversations they had put on pause at lunch. Brendon turned to Josh and asked, "So what is The Nerd even about? And why the hell is it called The Nerd?" Josh lit up with excitement as he began to dive into full detail of the play. "Well, it starts off with the rich main character, Willum Cubbert, in distress over his friend, Tansy McGinnis's decision to leave the state and go be a weatherperson on the other side of the country. Tansy and Willum have had feelings for each other for a while, but have both been too afraid to admit it. So their friend, Axel Hammond comes up with this elaborate scheme to get them together before Tansy leaves. He hires-" Josh is cut off by the sound of Mr. Finster entering the room and announcing that class had begun. "Alright, ladies and gentleman, I have an announcement to make." He said, standing in front of the classroom. "As you're all informed, the end of your high school career is coming to an end in a few months. You're all deeply saddened, I know," he paused, chuckling as he let the class laugh for a bit as well, "I've decided we should make it count. I've selected a play with a good plot, good characters, good running time, and just enough roles for everyone in the class. Now since you're all in theatre four, and you've all worked pretty darn hard to get here, this play will be strictly for you guys. No outside auditions. The only cast will be people in this room and the only crew will be theatre three's." Everyone showed their excitement. Even though everyone in the class knew they were good enough for all of the roles, a guarantee was still nice. 

 

Josh raised his hand and asked, "So when are auditions?" "Good question," Mr. Finster replied, "Seeing as we don't have much time before the year is over to get this done fore finals, auditions will be at the end of this week. Be prepared." The class didn't try to hide their shock. Five days to find a monologue and perfect it? What the hell was Finster thinking? As an uproar began, Mr. Finster raised his hand to silence them and said, "I don't want to hear any complaints. You're all getting spots in the play, so be grateful."

 

"This sucks," Brendon said, kicking a rock off the sidewalk and into the grass as he walked alongside Josh on their way to his house. "Is he out of his fuckin' mind?" He continued, not bothering to hide and disgruntlement. "I know, man, I know." Josh said, agreeing with his friend. "Finster's insane, we all know this. We'll just practice even harder before auditions. Come on man, we're theatre 4's, we'll be fine." Josh lightheartedly nudged Brendon's shoulder, in an effort to cheer him. Having only 5 days notice before auditions was insane, but Josh didn't want to waste time fussing about it. 

 

It wasn't long before they made it to their apartment. Normally they wouldn't walk rather than drive, but the only car they had was in desperate need of fixing. Their apartment was tiny, with barely enough space for them to live, but it was what they could get. Both of them finally legal adults, all they wanted to do what get out from under their parents' roofs. Well, mostly Brendon. Josh was perfectly fine with his family, but decided Brendon could use a roommate.

 

"So then," Brendon said, kicking off his shoes as they got through the door. "Any ideas for your audition yet?" "Nah," Josh replied, sitting on the couch and flipping through the channels on the television. "How about you? Gonna redo that monologue you did for Gatsby? It did get you the lead." Josh asked, also taking his shoes off after finding something okay to watch. "Dude are you nuts?" Brendon asked, opening the fridge and searching for a snack. "Finster would probably have a fit if anyone ever tried to redo an audition." "Yeah, I suppose." Josh said, looking at the television but paying no attention to it. He had already done every good monologue out there, hell, every theatre four had. He had no idea how he was going to find a good one and get it down in five days. He just hoped that however he did, it would be good enough to get the starring role.


	2. Chapter 2

"Five days before an audition? Is Finster out of his mind?" Dallon asked his friend as he took a seat at the edge of his bed, reaching for his laptop that laid on the pillow. "Yeah, Mr. Finster is one crazy dude." Tyler said, sitting at the foot of the bed. "How the hell are we meant to find a good monologue before the end of the week?" He asked, looking at the ground and pondering the answer to his own question. "No fucking clue, man." Dallon said, moving the laptop in between them. "It would be a hell of a lot easier if he'd let us use monologues from shows or movies or something." "Definitely, dude." Tyler said, pulling out his phone and looking through all the websites where he'd gotten monologues from before.

Dallon's house was a mess. His father was rarely at home, and his mom wasn't exactly the most responsible mother out there. Thus, Dallon did most of the work around the house. It wasn't all that bad, though. He did have his friend, Tyler, over almost everyday. It was pretty cool that neither of their parents cared too much if they stayed up all night at each other's houses or not. With five days until the audition, they'd definitely have some long nights ahead of them. 

The search for the perfect monologue went on for what seemed to be forever. Neither Tyler nor Dallon seemed to be any closer to finding even a decent audition piece. "You know what?" Dallon eventually said, breaking the silence. "I'm this close to just saying 'fuck it' and doing a piece from a movie or something." "Fuck," Tyler said, putting his phone down and rubbing his eyes, "Me too. I've never hated the audition process more than I do right now." "Me either, Tyler." Dallon replied, shutting his laptop and pushing it to the side. 

He looked at the clock on his nightstand. It read 7:27. "Do you wanna eat something soon?" Dallon asked, getting up from the bed. "Ugh, please." Tyler said, doing the same. "I'm starving."

Tyler and Dallon headed to the kitchen to try and find something to eat. Dallon's family wasn't exactly the most well off, and they hadn't been grocery shopping in a while. When they realised they hadn't any food to eat there, Dallon turned to Tyler and asked, "Yo man, you wanna just, go to Wendy's or something? We've got, like, nothing here." "Wendy's is fine. Gotta have some good chicken nuggets, man." Tyler chuckled, as did Dallon. They both scrounged up some money and got headed to Wendy's. 

Tyler and Dallon went to Wendy's so often it was sickening. They knew most of the worker by name, and the workers knew them as well. Instead of grocery shopping, as he overall didn't have enough money to, Dallon just took his friend out to eat everyday. 

"The usual?" Dallon asked as he got out of his car and approached the building. "You know it, dude." Tyler answered, closing his car door. 

Even though they were both a bit tired of eating at the same place every night, Tyler and Dallon enjoyed coming out to Wendy's every night. They enjoyed going out. Silly as it seemed, the Wendy's was constant, safe almost. 

"So," Dallon started, taking a sip from his drink. "Any ideas for the audition yet?" Tyler huffed, "No. Finster is crazy if he thinks we can do this by Friday." "Yeah," Dallon returned, gathering the trash and getting up to throw it away. Tyler followed behind him. 

Once they were back in the car and on the road again, they kept trying to come up with ideas for a good audition piece. "I just," Dallon said, not taking his eyes off the road. "I have absolutely no fucking ideas. My mind is completely blank!" "Same, man." Tyler agreed. "Do you think we could just, I don't know, reuse any pieces we've already done?" Tyler asked, sounding as if he already knew the answer. "Are you insane? Finster would explode if any of us pulled that shit." Dallon answered. "I guess you're right." Tyler said, looking down. 

He didn't even want to do The Nerd. Tyler hated being on stage, no matter how many times people praised him for his acting. Sure he was good, he wouldn't deny it, but he had terrible stage fright. Every time he got up on stage, no matter how well he knew his lines, he froze. So, he preferred to work behind the scenes. He would much rather watch a play come together from a more outside point of view than be it. 

"Do you think that maybe," Tyler started, not really knowing where he was going. "Think maybe what?" Dallon asked, sounding a bit concerned. "I don't know," Tyler said, looking out the window. "Do you think that maybe Finster would let me crew for The Nerd?" He turned back to Dallon, a hopeful look in his eye as if it was his decision and not Mr. Finster's. Dallon let out a sigh and turned to Tyler for a second. "Ty," he started, trying to keep all focus on the road. "I know how you get on stage and all but..." He didn't know what to say. Mr. Finster didn't exactly respect people's boundaries. "I'm sorry, man. I don't think he will. You know how he is." Tyler let out a sigh and brought his knees up to his chest and rested his chin on them. 

When they returned home, the search for the perfect monologue began once again.

"Tyler?" Dallon asked, not looking up from his phone. "How long has it been since we've started searching?" "About and hour and a half." He answered, sounding completely exhausted. Dallon looked at the clock. It was 10:32, and all they wanted to do was sleep. "Well," Dallon said, putting his phone down on the nightstand. "I'm worn out. Im going to bed." "Okay," Tyler said, kicking off his shoes and climbing onto the mattress in the middle of Dallon's room. Since Tyler practically lived with him, the extra mattress was always on the floor, ready for Tyler to crawl into. "Good night!" Tyler said, turning out the lights. "Good night, Ty."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it's like almost midnight here but i rly wanted to post this now.  
> but yeah bb here you go pls enjoy  
> also any comments and criticisms are much appreciated!

**Author's Note:**

> hey howdy hey this is my first story and it's probably gonna Suck™ also if i make any characters curse too much pls let me know bc i curse a fuckton and if i hadn't tried to tone it down every other spoken word would be fuck. 
> 
> comments are much appreciated & i'll do my best to respond to all of them
> 
>  
> 
> also lil side note i came up w this idea before brendon even announced that he was gonna be in kinky boots and then i realized the connection and i was like holy shit


End file.
